This week, we feature a warm novel set at Christmas, riveting biographies of WWII reporters, and vital findings on how space travel effects health.
Fiction Finding Faith in Lost River
‘A Redbird Christmas’
By Fannie Flagg
Oswald T. Campbell, 52, receives a dire health prognosis. He leaves chilly Chicago for what he believes may be his last Christmas and takes up residence in a small rural community in Alabama. Warm and welcomed, he receives a rich magical gift, as will readers.
Random House, 2005, 240 pages Inside the Cloistered Life
‘In This House of Brede’
By Rumer Godden
A career woman, 42-year-old Philippa Talbot, shocks her boss and subordinates when she joins a contemplative religious order in the Benedictine Abbey of Brede. There the nuns still follow the rule of “work and pray.” As Philippa enters into this new life and through the years afterward, we learn about the other nuns, but we also discover much about monastic practices, church history, and the customs of those who, to this day, practice the Rule of St. Benedict. This 1969 novel was Rumer Godden’s masterpiece….